Sponsors: Opera di Santa Croce, Medici Archive Project, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and Syracuse University in Florence. Organizers: Sally J. Cornelison, Alessio Assonitis, Paola Vojnovic; Keynote: Marcia B. Hall (Temple University).
The year 2016 will mark the 450th anniversary of the start of Giorgio Vasari’s renovation of the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence. The goal of this international conference is to revisit, revise, and expand our understanding of Vasari’s work at the basilica, how it relates to Cosimo I’s absolutist political and aesthetic agenda, and the renovation’s impact on the history of Italian Renaissance art. We seek papers in English or Italian that address how Vasari’s renovation altered the structure of the Gothic basilica, affected the works that predated his intervention, or interpret how the Lives of the Artists has influenced our understanding of those works. In addition, we are especially interested in papers that explore topics such as the sixteenth-century additions and alterations to Santa Croce, including the patronage history and iconography of the cinquecento altarpieces, how Vasari’s renovation relates to the history of the mendicant religious orders in sixteenth-century Florence, or how it reflects Cosimo I’s attempts to advertise his power through art and architecture.